


Gonna Get Religion All Night Long

by McSpot



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Oral Sex, Praise Kink, San Jose Sharks, Service Top, Shower Sex, Soft af, like the softest shit man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-26 15:42:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21376534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/McSpot/pseuds/McSpot
Summary: When his teammates are struggling with losses and self-doubt, Brent Burns takes confession in the showers.Mario Ferraro has his doubts, but Burnzie makes him a believer.
Relationships: Brent Burns/Mario Ferraro, mentioned Brent Burns/Other(s)
Comments: 74
Kudos: 178





	Gonna Get Religion All Night Long

**Author's Note:**

> So nearly two years ago I had some throwaway lines in one of my werewolf fics where it was stated that "Burnzie takes confession in the showers," and it was left ambiguous to both the reader and the POV character as to what, exactly, this entailed, but it was stated it could mean "sexual healing in the showers." I often forget that I wrote this, but certain friends and readers like to remind me of it, often, because it was apparently their deepest desire to see Brent Burns have shower sex. I have always ardently refused to write this, but I think on Day Four of The Plague I've just coughed up most of my brain because I sat down and wrote 8k about it in one day. I'd say I'm sorry but I'm super not, you guys asked for it, now you have to read it.
> 
> Turned out to be some of the softest shit I've ever written in my life. Mario Ferraro was chosen because he's adorable and I wanted someone newer to the team for this fic. Also yes I'm fully aware I'm going to hell but you clicked on this so you can join me there.
> 
> Title is from "Hey Tonight" by CCR, because if you don't think Burnzie would smash to CCR, you're wrong. Also unedited because this is not the fic where I'm suddenly going to start editing my work.

Burnzie took extra long showers.

It was something Mario noticed right away, but didn't really pay a lot of attention to. The only thing that made it notable was that hockey players took so many showers a day that most of them had the three-minute shower down to an art, if only so they didn't end up spending half a day bathing after every workout and practice.

In the scheme of all of the new things Mario was learning transitioning from college directly to the NHL, it was something he realized a few days into training camp, and then promptly forgot all about.

He was busy enough trying to find a place for himself – both metaphorically with the team and physically finding a place to live – that it didn't really stick out as abnormal until the regular season had begun.

That was when he started to notice...trends.

Burnzie was pretty much always the last one out of the showers. That was a given. He tended to go in later than everyone else, no matter how fast he got off the ice or got undressed. He was the last one in, and the last one out.

Fine, whatever. Plenty of guys had weird superstitions about being the first or last or fifth to do something. It didn't affect anyone else's routines so it didn't really make a difference on a hockey team full of bizarre regimented behaviors.

But then he realized that some days Burnzie stayed way longer than others. And when he did, he wasn't alone.

It could happen any time of day – after practice, after morning skate, after a game. Sometimes multiple times throughout the same day.

Burnzie would stay late in the shower, past when everyone else was packing up and going home, and if you lingered long enough, someone might come out at the same time as him.

Someone who would normally be showered and dressed way before now.

Maybe if Mario had more of a life in San Jose, he wouldn't have noticed these things. But there were two ways go to about being a rookie: being loud and obnoxious and making everyone remember your name, or sitting back and keeping your mouth shut and getting a feel for the room before trying to make waves.

Mario had always been the latter type of guy, and so maybe he was being a little more observant than he usually would have been back at school.

The first one he noticed was Hertl.

Hertl was, in general, a really chipper guy. Like, abnormally positive, all the time, to the point where Mario had to wonder if he ever got really discouraged or pissed off.

And then he saw Hertl coming out of the shower with Burnzie one day late after practice. His face was flushed, his mouth was red and swollen, and he was laughing and smiling at Burnzie like he'd hung the moon.

Only pure shock kept Mario from reacting at all, ducking his head and focusing on fervently stuffing his things in his bag.

He knew what someone looked like when they'd just been sucking a dick.

It wasn't any of his business. He didn't know what his teammates did in their private lives and it wasn't his place to judge them. No matter his feelings on it, if it wasn't relevant to his role as a Shark, then he was better off keeping his mouth shut and looking the other way.

But he couldn't stop looking.

Hertl seemed to go in with Burnzie after most home practices. Sometimes Dilly went in after morning skate, going in looking keyed up and antsy and coming out loose and relaxed in ways Mario couldn't think about for too long.

Thornton – fucking _Jumbo Joe Thornton_ – would bring Burnzie back to his hotel room for a pregame "nap," and Mario had to tell himself that they were just like, telling old man jokes and braiding each other's beards in there because he couldn't afford to consider anything more.

After a game it could be anybody. Win or lose, almost every night, someone was staying late in the showers with Burnzie. Both goalies, _both _Karlssons, Goodrow, Meier, Labanc – there was no rhyme or reason to it, whether someone had a good game or a bad game or did absolutely nothing that game.

Someone was always in the fucking shower with Brent Burns, and there was a non-zero chance that there was some _actual_ fucking going on in the shower with Brent Burns.

It's not like Mario ever _saw_ anything inappropriate in the showers, but then again he had learned at a young age that showering with your teammates involved a lot of focusing solely on yourself and keeping wandering eyes to a minimum, so he probably wouldn't have noticed if something was going on as long as they were quiet.

And he never heard anything strange, so he couldn't say for sure that there was anything...sexual, about his teammates spending weird amounts of time in the shower with Burnzie.

Mario wasn't, like, having sex every night back in college, but he felt like he knew pretty well what someone looked like when they'd just gotten off.

Most of the people coming out of that shower looked like they'd just gotten off.

And gotten off very well.

Everyone said that professional hockey players had a lot of sex, but Brent Burns had to be getting laid more than anyone else in the NHL. Apparently number of teeth or volume of beard hair didn't have any negative impact on how many people wanted to fuck you.

That wasn't a statistic Mario ever expected to know, and he wasn't really sure what to do with it.

Especially when Burnzie was so _nice_ to him all the time. He was gregarious and welcoming, gave tips on who to watch on the ice, how to be a better d-man. All in all he was a pretty great mentor actually, if Mario could look at him and not think about him getting his dick sucked by their teammates in the shower apparently multiple times a day.

Having sex with most of his teammates didn't preclude Burnzie from being a good teammate and a great hockey player, but it sure as fuck was distracting.

It was something that Mario was planning to take with him to his grave – pretty early in his career to start making that list, but it was never too early to learn discretion.

Until a fucking miserable 4-1 loss to the Leafs towards the end of October, where the team went from a 1-1 tie to a ridiculous collapse in the last ten minutes of the third. Everyone was frustrated and pissed off, sullenly silent or banging around the dressing room and gnashing their teeth.

Cooch was the worst after losses. Mario had only ever known him as the captain, but it was plain to see that he took every loss extremely personally – and publicly, too. They didn't have to read their own press to know the stories the media were writing about Logan as the Sharks' new captain.

He didn't pull his punches with the team either. It was kind of crushing, to have Logan pull you aside and tell you he was disappointed in you and how he expected you to be better; Mario knew that even without having ever been on the receiving end of it. Fuck what Cooch said to the media, it was what he said in private that stuck with you.

Mario would have deserved to be taken to task that night. He was a -1, just like most of the D, and his contributions all night were pretty much nil, aside from a stupid tripping call that he was lucky hadn't been turned into a goal against them.

But after he finished with the media, long after everyone else was getting back into their game-day suits and getting ready to leave, Cooch went off to the showers. And he was gone for a long damn time, way longer than he usually took.

And when he came back, his gait was looser, his shoulders were relaxed, and Brent Burns was wrapped in a towel and clapping a hand around the nape of his neck, whispering something in his ear.

Mario put his earbuds in and forced himself to think about making upgrades to his gaming computer until it was time to get on the bus.

He wasn't going to make it weird. He wasn't going to say anything, or make anyone uncomfortable – because apparently everyone else already knew what was going on and they were more than comfortable with it.

He would just pretend that it wasn't happening, and maybe never make eye contact with Burnzie or any of his teammates ever again.

While he'd thought he was doing an excellent job of that, evidently he was not, because it was only a few days later after another shitty loss to Boston that Jumbo caught him watching Goody going into the showers after everyone else – and seeing as Goody was tossed with a misconduct with ten minutes left in the game, there was no reason for him not to be showered and dressed yet.

Mario didn't jump when Jumbo laughed, but he maybe twitched a little bit. He tried to stay perfectly still as Jumbo plopped down in the stall next to him and bumped their shoulders together.

"Figured it out, eh?"

If he was asking about the contents of Mario's next tech video for YouTube, yes, he was doing an excellent job of figuring that out.

"I'm sorry?" Mario did his best to look like he hadn't the slightest clue what Joe could possibly be referring to.

Jumbo laughed again, threw an arm over his shoulders. "C'mon kid, don't be shy. I've been watching you, you've been paying attention."

He nodded in the direction of the showers, smiling easy-as-you-please, like he wasn't talking about the possibility that most of the team – including him! – had fucked their teammate in there.

Was he better off playing dumb? Plausible deniability, right?

"Uh..."

Joe wasn't having it. "It's okay, you know. It's not a secret or something, everybody knows about it."

Mario didn't gulp, but he maybe swallowed a little louder than usual.

"I don't..."

He didn't know where he was going with that, and so he let the sentence die, looking uneasily at his lap.

Jumbo squeezed his shoulder. "It's nothing to be ashamed of. We're all okay with it. More than okay."

The way he leered, just a little bit, was something Mario would never be able to scrub out of his brain.

"You all..." He didn't know how to possibly put it into words in a way that his brain could comprehend. If he didn't say it out loud, maybe it wouldn't be real and he could continue acting like nothing was happening.

"Burnzie takes confession in the showers," was not what Mario was expecting Joe to say.

"I'm sorry?"

Jumbo's smile was wry and knowing. "He takes confession. You're having a hard day, you feel like you're fucking up or nothing's going your way, you got a guilty conscience about something, and you don't feel like you can talk about it with the team? You go to Burnzie in the showers and he absolves you of your guilt. You walk out a new man."

Mario wasn't from, like, the most devout Catholic family, but he remembered a bit from Sunday school growing up.

"Isn't that, like, kind of sacrilegious to fuck your teammates in the showers and call it confession?"

The laugh Jumbo barked out was loud, louder than Mario would have liked for the type of conversation they were having. But Jumbo hadn't known shame in a long time, and apparently this particular embarrassing topic was only embarrassing for Mario himself.

"Confession doesn't mean fucking, kiddo." He reached up and ruffled Mario's curls, which he'd spent no small amount of time trying to settle into something presentable. Mario couldn't decide if he felt pleased or annoyed for the attention.

"It's whatever you want it to be. It's always been that way. Some guys just need someone to vent to that isn't going to judge them and they don't want to bother getting a real therapist. Some guys want someone to give them advice or work through a problem with them. Some just want to be told that they did a good job or they're capable of doing better."

"And some of them want to fuck." Mario couldn't forget all the times Hertl had come out of the showers looking thoroughly debauched and thrilled for it.

Jumbo's wink was not particularly reassuring. "Well, bud, full-on fucking in the showers isn't as sexy as porn might make it out to be, but yes, confession is whatever you need it to be. And some guys need more than others. That's okay, we don't judge that here."

His voice never changed from light, too-casual for the conversation, but Mario could sense the steel behind his words. That wasn't just a statement of fact; it was an order, or Mario's time here would probably be pretty brief.

Mario looked down at his lap again. "That's fine. I'd already – I knew something was going on and I wasn't going to say anything anyways. It's not my business."

Joe made a noise of disagreement. "Well that's not true, bud. If you're a part of this team, it's your business."

"...Um..."

This time he expected Jumbo to laugh. "C'mon, if you're gonna be a Shark, then confession is just as open to you as anyone else."

Mario had been thoroughly embarrassed and ashamed of himself in dressing rooms before, usually after a bad game, but he'd never before wanted so badly to melt into the floor and disappear.

"That won't be necessary," he choked, words thin and strangled.

Jumbo ruffled his hair again. "Don't knock it until you've tried it, you might come around. You're still just figuring things out. I'm just letting you know, you're a Shark now. You ever want to come talk to anyone about anything, that's fine. And if you ever want to work on things in private? Burnzie's got your back. He keeps office hours in the shower after every game and practice and he doesn't mind having a line."

He couldn't imagine what a lineup to fuck Brent Burns would look like but he wasn't sure he wanted to let that picture form in his head.

"Okay, well thank you," Mario told his feet. "I'll, um, I'll keep that in mind. For future reference."

For the ass-end of never.

He was so relieved he could have cried when Jumbo finally left him alone. There was also an extremely high probability that Mario may never be able to look at _or_ speak to any of his teammates again for the rest of his career.

Hopefully their hockey sense would be good enough to get along without it.

He couldn't get it out of his head the next few days. It was ridiculous – they were on a homestand for the next week and a half, which gave Mario plenty of time to do things unrelated to his team like gaming and laundry and working on his next vid and more laundry.

But all he could think about was how his whole team had bought into the idea that Brent Burns could like. Absolve them of their sins.

Or maybe just make them feel better.

It wasn't, like, a totally crazy idea. Absolution was a little bit of a strong word for it, but Burnzie was definitely supportive. He'd given Mario a pep talk after a bad loss before and Mario usually felt better afterwards. Burnzie making guys feel better about themselves wasn't hard to believe.

The rest of it though...he couldn't wrap his mind around it.

Mario wasn't so closeted to think that he couldn't find a guy attractive – he'd played college hockey, he knew all about finding men attractive – but he usually made a point not to check out his teammates. He was pretty sure that was considered common courtesy. Like not hitting on your coworkers in the workplace and that sort of shit.

But now that he knew that there was a pretty significant likelihood that a good chunk of his teammates had probably touched Burnzie's dick, he couldn't stop himself from sneaking glances.

Burnzie wasn't like, _un_attractive, in an objective sense. The missing teeth and the insane beard were usually distracting enough that he imagined most people probably didn't check him out too often.

But the dude was jacked, had at least six inches on Mario and something like fifty pounds. Everything about him was solid muscle, his thighs were tree trunks, and he had tattoos everywhere.

Even if bearded and toothless wasn't your thing, you couldn't deny the guy had a great body.

Mario's wilting sense of propriety kept him from ogling Burnzie's dick, but he had to imagine it probably matched the rest of him: large, and visually appealing.

He still couldn't get himself on board with being propositioned by the guy though. Or like...Burnzie making himself available for propositioning? Having a standing offer to fuck whoever felt they needed it?

But not just fucking, he reminded himself. Also being like...the unofficial team therapist. Because they did have a real team psychologist, but why talk to the professional when you could go to the showers and talk it out with your naked teammate?

(Though Mario had to admit, the latter sounded less daunting.)

He should have just chalked it up to the eccentricities of life and focused on his game.

But focusing on his game just made things worse.

Their first game back at home was...not excellent. To be fair, they kept the Jets to only nineteen shots on net. But on the other, their team had _fifty-three _shots and still couldn't buy a goal, and they let the Jets win with three goals scored _with only nineteen shots on net_. Mario himself didn't have a bad night, per se, but it wasn't a fun time to be a defenseman, not when Jonesy was starting to look twitchier than ever and Cooch had to go martyr himself to the press again.

Nobody was in the mood for giving Mario a pep talk that night, not that he'd ever dream of asking for one. They were all frustrated, with each other but mostly with themselves.

He saw Erik go into the showers after Burnzie, but he didn't stick around to see them come out.

The perks of playing at home.

The Vancouver game was...bad. And it had no reason to be that way. Shots were nearly equal, penalties too. But Vancouver scored two unanswered in the first, and two unanswered in the second, and by the third everyone knew they were in for a bad night. Eddie's short-handed goal gave them a glimmer of hope, but when Pettersson came back to score right after on the power play, they knew they were done.

Deller stayed in net the whole time, stoic and grim, and Mario felt like shit every time he saw him there, mask pulled down, eyes unreadable.

They were shitting the bed and their goalies were getting blamed for it. They all knew the press, they all knew what everyone said, about how their goalies weren't good, how Jonesy wasn't a good starter, about how their team was old and needed change.

About how guys like Mario were supposed to be part of that new youthful change, and yet look what he'd done for them? Fucking nothing, because they were still on their fifth loss in a row, their eleventh in fifteen games. Not exactly the starting record everyone expected from a team that went to the conference finals last year.

The feeling in the dressing room after the game was awful. It was absolutely silent, save for guys mumbling to the athletic trainers about new injuries or slamming equipment down too hard. Mario couldn't look away from his hands, couldn't get them to stop shaking as he tried to unlace his skates.

What the fuck was he even doing here? They let him play twenty minutes tonight, and what good had that done for anyone? They still lost, fifth loss in a row, and in front of the home fans.

He wasn't ready for this. He just turned twenty-one, he played two years at college, that wasn't enough to prepare him for the fucking NHL.

Except, of course, Elias Pettersson was a few months younger than him and had scored two goals in that game alone and won a Calder last year, so other people his age were getting along just fine. It was just him who couldn't get his shit together-

"Hey, man, can I get your stuff for the laundry?"

Mario startled and looked up. Half the room had already cleared out while he was uselessly fumbling with his skates. One of the locker room attendants was standing in front of him, big bin full of used jerseys behind him.

"Oh, shit, yeah," he muttered, working to yank some of his gear off.

God, what must he have looked like, sitting there like an idiot who couldn't take off his own skates when he was taking up a spot on an NHL roster?

He knew he was probably the last one in when he finally made it to the shower, and he was half-tempted not to bother with it except he knew he had to smell like hell and he didn't want to ruin his suit.

Most of the guys seemed to have already left for home, so at least he'd have it to himself to self-flagellate in peace.

He walked into the showers, hung up his towel, came around the corner, and froze.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was pretty sure he could have guessed that Burnzie would still be there. Always had to be last one out of the showers, of course.

But for some reason, he'd been so out of it, and it was so late, he assumed he'd be gone now, too.

And yet there Burnzie was, calmly shampooing his beard and humming tunelessly to himself.

Mario didn't think he'd made any noise, but Burnzie seemed to notice his presence all the same, glancing back over his shoulder and throwing Mario a toothless smile.

"Hey, bud, I thought you might still be around here."

He seemed way too chipper for the type of game they'd just played.

Or maybe not chipper. Just...gentle.

Mario ducked his head and slowly moved to a shower a few spaces away, telling himself that was the normal distance he'd pick anyways. Like how you don't take the urinal right next to another guy when you could have a space between you. Common decency and all that.

"Yeah," he mumbled, voice covered by the spray of the shower as he turned it on. "I just...got distracted."

He stared resolutely at the dispenser of generic body wash mounted on the wall, waiting for the water to warm up. It shouldn't really take that long, with another shower running, but it felt like a lifetime.

"Anything you want to talk about?"

Realistically he knew that Burnzie's voice wasn't any louder than before, but he flinched all the same.

The silence after was deafening.

"Uh, no," he told the tiles. "I don't need...that."

He felt bad as soon as he said it. It wasn't his place to talk down about something that apparently helped all of his teammates. He shouldn't be so dismissive. Burnzie had been nothing but good to him, the last thing he wanted to do was insult one of his teammates. Between the two of them, one of them was a lot more likely to get sent down or traded if he had issues with teammates and it wasn't Burnzie.

But Burnzie just hummed again, like nothing strange was going on. "Ah, so you heard."

Yeah, Mario had certainly _heard_.

"Well, I want you to know that everything I do – or don't do – it's all optional. Nobody gets forced to come see me. And I only do what guys ask me to do; I don't ask them for anything. I think of it as my way to try to take care of my teammates. Ferda boys, right?"

Mario still couldn't look at him, but he could hear the grin in Burnzie's voice.

"Anyways, whatever you want, or don't want, it's not going to change how I view you. I'm here for anyone who needs it, but if you don't, that's cool too. A shower's a shower, eh?"

He didn't keep talking after that, didn't force Mario to turn it into a conversation.

It just...sat there, hanging in the air, an offer that felt more like a gauntlet with each passing second. Mario closed his eyes, dragged a hand through his wet curls, tried to remind himself that he took like three showers a day every day and this shouldn't feel so complicated.

But his hand was shaking again when he went to reach for his shampoo, and he couldn't stop himself from turning around and asking, "But how do they know what they need?"

When Burnzie slowly turned to face him, Mario couldn't help but wonder if he used that same careful, steady body language with his animals.

"Some guys come in the door knowing what they want," he said calmly, like this was normal fucking stuff to talk about in the showers, when Mario's heart was pounding out of his chest. "And sometimes it takes a bit of trial and error to know what they're looking for."

They just watched each other for a moment, some sort of bizarre standoff with so many unspoken words between them.

And then Burnzie asked gently, "Do you know what you want?"

Mario bit his lip. His curls were dripping down into his eyes, but his hands were shaking when he tried to push them away.

"I don't..."

He wanted to say he didn't need anything, and he was sure in that moment that if he did, Burnzie wouldn't push him. He'd tell Mario he was there if he needed anything, and that they could always talk whenever he wanted, and he'd let it go.

Mario needed someone to push him.

"I don't know what I want," he said slowly, looking at the ground because he didn't think he could manage looking at another person right now. "But I..."

He turned his head towards the spray, licked his lips, told himself his eyes weren't burning because that was more than he could bear right now.

"Hey."

When he looked back, Burnzie had stepped a few feet closer, out of the spray of his own shower, but far enough away that Mario's didn't touch him.

It was a bizarre thought, that someone like Brent Burns could almost look vulnerable like that, standing wet and naked, dripping onto the cold tile.

But instead he just looked...solid, and strong. Dependable.

And like maybe he really gave a fuck if the rookie was having a hard time adjusting to playing in the NHL when his team couldn't stop losing.

Burnzie didn't reach out to touch him, but when he caught Mario's eyes his gaze held him in place just the same. Slowly, so that nothing he said could be mistaken, he asked, "Mario, do you want my help right now?"

Mario could only bite his lip and nod.

"Okay. Can I touch you?"

He waited a beat, stared at Burnzie's eyes, the familiar laugh lines around them, and nodded.

A moment later Burnzie was pulling him into his arms right there under the spray of the shower. It was probably normal for Burnzie, to be wet and naked and touching another guy, but it was a first for Mario. He still slumped into Burnzie's arms, and he knew that Burnzie would support him, because he was so fucking _big_ and his arms were so secure around Mario's back.

"Hey, you're okay," Burnzie murmured. His beard was wet against the side of Mario's face, and he would have expected it to be bristly, but it just felt soft, like any other hair. Whatever products he'd been putting in it definitely worked.

"I'm sorry," Mario said against his chest.

Burnzie hummed, but he didn't tell Mario he was wrong. He didn't know if that made him feel better or worse.

"Do you know what you're sorry for?"

Mario shrugged, feeling the weight of Burnzie's heavy arms against his shoulders as he did.

"Everything? For losing, and for not doing more, and for taking up space on the team, and for this right now, and-"

When Burnzie hushed him, he fell silent immediately.

"There's no shame in needing help," he said. One of his hands came up and started trailing slowly through Mario's curls. "I'm not going to argue with you over if you're right or not, because that's not going to change your mind. What would help you right now?"

Mario couldn't answer right away, couldn't find the words to comprehend the situation they were in.

But Burnzie seemed perfectly comfortable to just hold him there under the spray of the shower, petting through his curls, nails scratching gently against his scalp, and wait him out.

"I...I don't know. I want to be better. I want to help the team. I want to be good."

The felt so flayed open, so vulnerable admitting those words out loud, let alone to a teammate.

But it felt...safe, like that, hidden in the warm spray of the shower together, a light mist hazing them from the rest of the empty room. Like it was a place where it was okay to show weakness, because Burnzie was going to be strong enough for the both of them. There was a certain sanctity to it, a warmth Mario had never felt before.

Maybe it felt a little sacred.

He could get why the guys called it confession.

"Do you want me to help you be good right now?" Burnzie asked quietly.

Mario hummed, but when Burnzie tugged gently on his hair, he knew he had to respond out loud. "Yeah."

"What would make you feel like you were good?"

He could feel his fingers clench against the muscle of Burnzie's back, tension shooting through his body along tethered to a bolt of indecision.

"I don't..."

"It's okay." He relaxed as Burnzie continued petting through his hair. "Let's think about it. Will talking help?"

After a moment, Mario shook his head.

Burnzie made a gentle sound. "Okay. So you want to do something."

A small, slow nod.

"Alright." Burnzie was quiet for a few seconds, just the patter of the shower between them.

And then, voice carefully measured, Burnzie asked, "Do you want to show me how you can be good?"

That was the moment, right there, the one that Mario had sworn he'd never reach because he couldn't understand how someone could agree to do that. He couldn't see how it could...help.

But he wanted to help the team. He wanted to do one tangible thing that could show that he could get things done, that he was good at something, that he was able to contribute.

That he was supposed to be here.

Pressing his face against Burnzie's beard and taking a deep breath, he nodded.

"Yeah," he mumbled. "I – I wanna be good."

Stumbling, tripping over his words, he added, "For – for you. I wanna be good for you."

When Burnzie placed his hands on his shoulders and pushed him backwards, for just a moment Mario began to panic, began to think that he'd said something wrong, that he wasn't going to be good enough – that maybe this had all been a trick from the start, just to see how far he'd go. How weak he was.

But then Burnzie held him in place, just far enough away that he could lean down and look into Mario's eyes. He must have agreed with whatever he found there.

"Okay," he said gently. "You ever done anything like this before?"

He didn't have to spell out what, exactly, he was referring to. Grimacing, Mario looked away and shook his head, but Burnzie wasn't having it, hooking a finger under his chin and bringing Mario's gaze back up to his own.

"That's alright. I'm gonna help you. But if you get uncomfortable with anything, for any reason, you tell me and we'll stop, okay?"

Mario nodded, but Burnzie waited him out until he verbally agreed too.

He didn't know why he thought there'd be more words to it, more – preparation, but Burnzie just smiled and gently pushed down on his shoulders. On autopilot, Mario slowly slid to his knees.

The tile wasn't cold on his knees. He'd expected it to be, but they'd been standing there so long with hot water pouring down on them, they'd warmed up. They were still hard on his knees, and it was grounding in a way, bringing home the reality of the situation, of what he was about to do.

If that didn't do it, Burnzie's dick at face-level would do it.

A distant part of him was gratified that his assumptions had been correct. Even soft, Burnzie's dick was certainly proportional and, as dicks went, it seemed to be a fairly attractive one. Despite the state of his beard, the rest of Burnzie was meticulously manscaped and neatly trimmed, and with the tattooed thighs on either side, the whole picture was startlingly aesthetically pleasing.

He didn't know how long he spent making artistic evaluations of his teammate's dick, but he startled when a big hand landed in his hair. When he looked up, Burnzie was smiling down at him, showing off the gap in his teeth and the crinkles around his eyes. He didn't say anything, and he didn't push. His hand was just there, fingers nestled in between Mario's curls, just...present.

God, he was so patient. Mario wanted to make it worth his while.

Steeling himself, he wrapped one hand around the base of Burnzie's dick to hold it in place and brought the head of it to his lips.

It...didn't really taste like anything. Skin, and maybe soap, which he probably should have figured seeing as Burnzie had been in the shower for a while before Mario came in. Mario sucked gently at the head, glanced up through wet eyelashes to check Burnzie's reaction. When he just kept smiling down at him, no overt sign that Mario was doing anything wrong, he tried sucking again, moving his tongue over the slit.

Slowly, he started moving his hand, twisting gently, trying to think of what he'd liked when people sucked him off before. It was difficult to think about it when all he could focus on was that there was a dick in his mouth – his teammate's dick, _Brent Burns's_ Norris Trophy-winning dick, and if you'd told him that a few weeks ago – well, fuck, he couldn't even believe it now.

He felt hot all over, but he wasn't sure if it was embarrassment or excitement. It was heady, having Burnzie smile down at him like that, like he was already doing well when he'd barely done anything at all. He'd never have predicted it for himself, but he felt a hot thrill of success when Burnzie's dick twitched in his mouth and began to harden.

Burnzie's fingers carded through his curls. "That's so good. You're doing such a good job getting me hard."

Mario had to close his eyes then, unable to handle the mixture of emotions that coursed through him. He felt embarrassed, like a kid getting praised like that, and filthy for getting praised for sucking dick and getting someone hard, and _good_ because he was doing this for the first time and he was doing it _well_.

He hated hearing it and he wanted Burnzie to keep talking.

Keeping his eyes shut, he tried taking a little more in his mouth. It was easy enough at first, bobbing just a bit, trying to touch absolutely everything with his tongue to figure out what worked, what Burnzie's _thing_ would be. But Burnzie was definitely a grower, and as he got fully hard there was a lot more dick to work with.

It was both terrifying and intriguing.

"You're doing alright," Burnzie's gentle voice continued, "Just take your time. There's no wrong choice, you're doing so well."

Emboldened, Mario tried to take a bit more, moving his hand more firmly over the part he couldn't cover with his mouth.

It was – a lot, if he let himself think about it, having that much dick in his mouth, big and hot and – and fucking _throbbing, twitching_, so there was no way he could forget even for a moment that he was sucking a dick right now.

He'd known on some level that there were people who really liked this, but he'd never considered what they liked about it. He'd never thought he'd be one of those people, but when he moved until his lips hit his hand and he couldn't fit anything more in his mouth, Burnzie pressed on his head, gently enough that Mario could pull away if he really wanted to, and just _held _him there.

And Mario looked up at him through his eyelashes, unable to think of anything other than how his mouth was so full of dick, and he saw how Burnzie's face had gone red from more than just the heat of the water, and he heard Burnzie say in a hoarse voice, "That's good, you're sucking my dick so well, you're taking care of me so well."

And he fucking understood what people liked about giving head, because he felt those words like a lightning rod, electricity sparkling down his spine, through his limbs, to his own dick. It was fucking hot to have that much control, to make somebody feel good.

To take care of them.

Feeling smug, he moved his hand from Burnzie's dick and tried to take the whole thing in one go before he lost his nerve.

For just a second, his nose nestled against Burnzie's pubes, damp and a little scratchy, and then he was pulling off, coughing, tears burning in the corners of his eyes.

"Oh, babe, you don't have to do that," Burnzie was saying, petting over his curls, cradling Mario's head in big, wide palms. "You're doing so good, take your time."

Mario sputtered, trying to clear his throat and catch his breath. He rested his cheek against Burnzie's broad thigh, sinking into the feeling of Burnzie stroking his hair, scratching blunt fingernails against his scalp.

"I want to do it." He was startled by how raspy his voice was – _from sucking dick_, his mind prompted – and felt a little chagrinned at how pouty he sounded.

When Burnzie tugged gently on his hair, he knew to look up.

"We got time to work on that," Burnzie said. He was smiling again and it made Mario's chest feel so warm. "But you don't have to go zero to sixty tonight, babe, we can save that for another time."

_Another time_.

Like Mario was doing a good enough job that he'd want to do it again.

Mario ducked his head and pressed a kiss to Burnzie's thigh, unable to look at him in the eye right now, but he leaned into Burnzie's hands on his head.

He tried for a little more finesse when he got Burnzie's dick back in his mouth, trying to coordinate the movements of his hand and his mouth, trying to find some sort of rhythm. Bringing up his other hand he cupped Burnzie's balls, tugging gently as he worked up and down his dick, sucking hard on the head.

Burnzie grunted like it had been surprised out of him, and Mario burned with victory.

"Fuck, baby, fuck, that's good, just like that, you got it, just keep doing that, you're so good."

Mario's whole body was on fire, a livewire ready to combust. He could feel his dick aching between his legs, but it didn't even bother him, didn't feel urgent. He couldn't move one ounce of focus from the dick in his mouth, from the sudden bitter taste that must have been precum.

It didn't break his stride for even a moment; nothing could. He felt so much in that moment, the warm water on his back, Burnzie's big hands stroking his curls out of his eyes, the hard tile pressing a pattern into his knees, Burnzie's hot dick taking over his senses, the taste of it, the smell of it.

He wanted to stay in that moment, relish it, that feeling of so much and _too_ much and doing well, of doing a good job taking care of his teammate.

"Fuck, look at me, babe, look up." Burnzie pulled softly on his curls; reluctantly, Mario opened his eyes, but he refused to break his rhythm once he'd found what worked, what made Burnzie make those punched out sounds, what made his body feel electric.

Burnzie cupped one hand over the side of Mario's face, stifling his movement a little. "That's good, baby," he said, voice strained. "God, you're such a good boy. Hold for me just like that. Yeah, that's good. Fuck, you're so pretty."

He pressed his hand against the corner of Mario's mouth, where his lips were stretched wide over Burnzie's thick cock.

"Look at you," Burnzie murmured, almost more for himself than for Mario. "You're gonna make me come in a minute, babe. You don't have to swallow if you don't want to."

Suddenly, that was the only fucking thing Mario wanted to do. Maybe it was the natural competitiveness of being a hockey player but he wanted to prove he could do it just because Burnzie suggested he couldn't.

If he wasn't going to deepthroat him, he was gonna fucking swallow.

Burnzie was clearly waiting for an answer, but Mario didn't really want to pull off and instead he sucked hard, earning a startled groan from Burnzie and another hot lick of arousal down his spine. He'd never felt so turned on by someone else's noises before, but maybe that's because everything he got out of Burnzie felt earned. Every twitch and grunt and noise was a reward for doing a good job.

And the words, of course. The words were everything.

"Oh, shit, come on, baby, just like that, you're so good, so good for me."

His hands in Mario's hair got a little rough, pulling like he forgot to be gentle, and that was almost better, knowing that he was making Burnzie lose his composure, that he was doing so well he was getting Burnzie to break script.

He kept his eyes open despite the water running down his face, watching Burnzie's expression like his life depended on it. He wanted to see him when he came, was suddenly desperate to know what his face looked like when Mario did a good job.

"Oh, fuck, I'm gonna come, baby." Burnzie tugged his hair as if in warning, and Mario sucked him down until his lips met his fist again.

"_Fuck!"_

Burnzie didn't pull Mario's hair as he came but he pressed down against his head, holding him in place, just _there_, solid and heavy as he came in Mario's mouth. Mario choked on his dick a little, trying to swallow and cringing at the taste. He spluttered and pulled back and Burnzie let him, so that his dick was twitching against Mario's lips, final spurts landing on his mouth, his chin.

"Shit, babe." Burnzie laughed a little looking down at him, but it was a breathless thing, beard soaked to his heaving chest, eyes crinkled to slits. He ran a thumb over Mario's chin, wiping away a streak of come.

Mario just looked up at him, waiting, as Burnzie smiled down at him. He licked his lips, winced a little when he tasted come again. "Was that..."

He didn't know how to finish the question without sounding pathetic, but the way Burnzie laughed sounded fond. "That was perfect. You were so good for me."

Mario ducked his head, biting his lip and smiling down at the tile.

"No, don't hide on me now, come here."

Burnzie caught Mario under the arms and gently pulled him to his feet. He didn't let go when Mario's knees protested the change in position and tried to buckle, turning them so that Mario was propped up with his back to Burnzie's chest.

"Easy, now, give yourself a minute." Burnzie's voice was close, beard rubbing against his ear. He was so big compared to Mario, one arm slung across the top of his chest, the other low on his waist.

"How do the others do this?" Mario grumbled, closing his eyes against the spray of the shower. His knees were on fire, and he was sure he could count individual tile imprints in his skin.

He liked the feeling when Burnzie laughed against his neck. "Well, absolutely nothing bothers Tomas."

Mario could see that.

"And Jumbo won't do anything unless he's got a bed; he's a bit of a pillow queen like that."

The sound Mario made was strangled, choking and laughing at the same time. His knees hurt like a bitch but he felt so good, warm and happy and loose, pleasantly sore.

He startled when Burnzie's hand pet lower, over his thigh. "You want help with this?"

He'd forgotten that he was still hard, dick curving towards his stomach, red and neglected.

"Um..." Mario wasn't sure what was considered polite in a situation like this, but Burnzie clearly caught on, pressed a kiss to the top of his shoulder.

"It's up to you, but I like it."

And really, that shouldn't have been surprising at this point.

Mario hummed and nodded, laid his head back against Burnzie's chest and watched as Burnzie's big hand settled over his dick, dark tattoos a stark contrast to his own body.

Warmth bloomed through his body, just a continuation of how he felt before, and he grunted and pressed into it, rocking his hips in tiny movements.

Burnzie huffed a laugh and kissed his neck. It felt kind of good, the press of beard against his skin. "Look at you, you're so eager for it. You were such a good boy, you deserve to feel good. You're so pretty, look at you."

It was over way faster than Mario would usually be comfortable with, but he was so turned on before he even got a hand on his dick. He bit his lip as his breath caught in his throat, and Burnzie breathed hot against his neck, husky voice whispering, "That's it, come for me, good boy, just like that."

Maybe it should have been embarrassing, how easy he was for it, but when he came he just felt warm and _good_.

He wasn't sure how long he stayed like that, slumped in Burnzie's arms, just kind of coasting, but when he came back to himself Burnzie was scrubbing a gentle, soapy hand over him.

When Mario looked over his shoulder and caught his eye, Burnzie gave him that crinkle-eyed grin again. "Figured I'd be helpful too," he said, and Mario couldn't help but laugh, couldn't stop himself from craning his neck so that he could catch Burnzie's lips in a quick kiss.

It was chaste, especially after what they'd just been doing, and a little weird because even without tongue involved Mario could feel where Burnzie was missing teeth. But it was worth it to see Burnzie's startled expression turn into a fucking giggle.

"God, you're good," he muttered like he couldn't help himself.

Mario ducked his head at the praise again, smiling at the floor, but Burnzie turned him around in his arms and tilted his head up, kissing him again.

"Don't hide from me," he murmured against Mario's lips. "You just showed me how good you are, I want you to hear it. And I promise you, this whole team'll tell you as many times as you need to hear it until you don't have to hide from it anymore."

The entire night had been so much – the loss, the shower, Burnzie, _everything_ – but that right there was the part that almost swallowed Mario whole.

He heaved a shuddering sigh and nodded, pressing his forehead against Burnzie's collarbone. After a moment he laid a kiss there, just because he could.

"Okay," he said against warm skin. "I'm...I'm gonna work on it."

He looked up through his lashes, caught Burnzie smiling down at him again. Resting his chin on Burnzie's chest and feeling a little brave, he amended, "We'll work on it."

Burnzie's kiss to his forehead was the most innocent thing they did all evening, and Mario swore he could feel it burning in him when he went to bed that night.

The Sharks won their next game, 4-2 against Chicago. When Mario skated back to the bench after assisting on a shorthanded goal, Burnzie threw an arm over his shoulders and pulled him tight against his side.

"My good fucking boy!"

Mario didn't need to go to confession that night, but every time those words bounced around his head, he ducked his head and smiled.

They'd work on it.

**Author's Note:**

> Mario Ferraro really does have a YouTube channel dedicated to discussions of computers, tech, and gaming. It's called [Youngest of Plugs](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_1JjEUnPe64HpjO2H3ws-g) and it's frickin adorable and he still updates it now that he's in the NHL.
> 
> I'm [swedishgoaliemafia](https://swedishgoaliemafia.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr.


End file.
